Handstand Progress

Hey guys,

I've been working on my handstand for 7 days so far, and this is what I got. I'm having trouble finding that balance point when I kick up, but when I find it, it feels strong for a while. But a lot of the time my hands are shifting around, as you'll see in the video... any tips?

Thanks,

Heya Cricks11!

Glad to see you've gotten into handbalancing Lemme see if I can be of some assistance.

Technique execution:

For the most part, your starting position to handstand isn't too bad at day 7, however, in your video, your shoulders/head and arms are out of line. In an ideal handstand execution, your leading leg, body, head and both hands should be in a straight line (the leading leg may require some flexibility so don't worry too much about it). Doing so will ensure two things:

--A more stable handstand position

--Less energy wasted (When the arms and body are off alignment, it's like doing a mini-Handstand press. Although one rep alone won't hurt, the wasted energy can accumulate over a period of time .

There isn't a side-view of your handstand, but I'm pretty sure your HS is too curved. You should be straight like a broom in your finished product. A good exercise to alleviate this problem would be to practice handstands w/ your stomach facing the wall. This will force your body into a proper handstand. Lose the wobbly legs too.

Although O.K in the first few practice sessions, I would highly discourage walking forward as a means of balancing your handstand. If you are falling forward, practice pushing against your palms to re-balance yourself. If you are falling backwards, bending your arms slightly should do the trick.

Putting the hands closer together might help out a bit.

Good blessings on your progress, buddy!

Although significantly easier then balancing a handstand, you might try frog stands to get a feel for proper balance shifting.

When you are falling forwards, simply press against your palms...but not too much!

You might find it difficult to balance the HS by pressing against your palms at first..Your ability will improve over time by training progressive body weight maneuvers.

Train hard! :shock:

Check out this article on how to do a proper handstand from Jim at beastskills.com:

http://beastskills.com/tutorials/tutorials/33

I used this to achieve my handstand (free standing for 30s with straight body line), but it took me about 4 months of at least 30 minutes a week worth of practice and an additional 1 month of shoulder stretching so I could even get a straight-ish body line. In the last month, I practiced closer to 90 minutes a week, but my wrists are now sore from the strain so I've backed off considerably. What I'm trying to say is that a good handstand may take you longer than 60 days to accomplish, so don't rush it and learn it right. After I started getting consistent 10s+ holds I started practicing way more than my wrists could support, but you might not have that problem if your wrists are stronger or your body is lighter.

Thanks for the tips! I will focus on keeping my body in line the next week, and have updates with my progress. I'll make sure I practice all the things you guys mentioned, and what the article at beastskills said.

Train hard my friend! We're all very excited to see your new found progress!

Cyberhat, what do you mean by leading leg? Shouldn't both legs be in line with your body?

Welcome to the club, buddy =)

Looking good! If I can suggest something, it would be to spend as much time as you can handle in stomach-against-the-wall-hanstands. It will build work capacity, allowing more technical work later on, plus I think it's a good idea to get a feel for the line as early as possible. Do your best to control your breathing and just try to feel what's going on with your body =) As far as balance goes, it will come with practice

Keep training hard..

Yes, in the actual handstand, both legs will be lined with the body..

But one leg will be in the vertical position first (leading leg) then the other leg (the kicking leg).

If you have the flexibility, you can try keeping your leading leg in a straight line with the rest of your body and then bringing up your kicking leg afterwards.

kinda like this!

There was a small part where she is slightly out of alignment but otherwise, it was a decent execution. Skip to 1:27..

Train hard and smart!

Hey guys, here's a post from my blog regarding my progress:

It's been a while since I've posted anything about my handstand progress. In fact, there hasn't been a lot of progress. Since I posted the video of Day 7, I got excellent feedback regarding my arched back and walking hands. Following their advice, I stopped trying to hold the longest handstand, and focused on better form. The past two weeks I've been essentially doing belly facing wall handstand holds, and trying to work on a press handstand. (I prefer to have control of my handstand rather than kicking up into it). But, I haven't seem to gotten very far with it. My line seems better, but at the same time, it makes the handstand much more difficult in my opinion. Wrist pain still restrains my training, and I've tried using parallettes, but so far I haven't learned how to dismount properly, and I'm still not used to controlling my balance with my wrists rather than my palm/fingertips. Anyways, here's a progress video, and as always, any advice is appreciated.

Questions:

-Is my line good enough now? Should I still work on my stomach to wall hold, or focus on my press to handstand?

-I seem to have hit a wall, and no longer progressing, any exercises to help me improve?

uFReSNdIPmo

Looks good, definitely moving in the right direction. Nice work.

Although you have reduced the amount of arch in your back you are still doing your handstands with arch. you need to cultivate your understanding of a "hollow body" position and get your hollow body strength, you look like you are very strong in your core so it is likely to just be a technique issue so I will try to explain.

1. Lie down, back to the floor.

2. Put your arms up by your ears as if in HS.

3. If there is any space underneath your lower back then that is wrong.

How to fix it, suck in your stomach and roll your hips under. If you get into a dish position where you bring your legs slightly off the ground and contract your abs, you will likely eliminate the arch, try this.

If this helps let me know, if not I will record a short video for you.

Other tips.

Your WHOLE body must be tight and tense, legs, butt, and press press press with your shoulders, arms totally straight, your traps squeezing out the extention constantly.

N.B. as others have said good HS WILL take longer than 60s as often a major problem is shoulder flexibility and opening the shoulder angle, Handbalancing is a lifetme persuit but then the journey is the fun right but you are making great progress.

Thanks, here's what I noticed when I tried that:

1. My arms have a difficult time touching the ground.

2. I can feel the ab contraction needed which lets my lower back touch the ground, so that's great.

Now you will start to feel how your body must be to remain hollow and have correct body line but you also notice that your shoulder flexibilty is lacking for the necessary open shoulder angle, there us a good beast skills video showing you how to use a massage ball to help open up the shoulder muscles that I will post when I'm at a computer and not on my phone.

Exciting news!

I made some HUGE progress on my press up to my handstand. I've been focusing way too much on trying to press up into a perfectly straight handstand, and I was just falling over and over and.... over....

The other day I said to myself, what the heck, I'll try pressing up into an arched handstand. To my surprise, it was so solid and stable! I haven't tried to do an arched handstand in a while but I guess in my pursuit for the straight handstand, the arched one became pretty good. Ok ok, I know we all don't like the arched handstand, but once I got into my stable arch, I was able to slowly straighten out my line!

I'll get a video of it soon, but I'm really happy!

Here's my progress... as promised!

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Great progress man, very inspiring. You seem to be pretty strong already, how long have you been working the gymnastic stuff?

Thanks, I'd like to think I'm strong enough, the tricky part for me is the balance. I've played around on gymnastic rings for a while, but as the name of the video would suggest, I've only started doing handstands.

here is a short video of a handstand press on parallettes:

I haven't been able to train very much lately, so this is the most recent:

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